Will Wright has finally left EA to focus on his own company, after thinking about the move for more than a year

Electronic Arts confirmed Will Wright, the man behind The Sims and Spore, is leaving EA to work at an entertainment studio he originally created in 2001.

Wright will be working full-time at Stupid Fun Club, a company designed to focus on new projects that could later be turned into video games, movies, toys, and other entertainment ventures -- EA also is serving as a sponsor of the company.

In 2001, the company was focused on robots, and drew a large amount of media attention because of Wright's involvement.

"The entertainment industry is moving rapidly into an era of revolutionary change. Stupid Fan Club will explore new possibilities that are emerging from this sublime chaos and create new forms of entertainment on a variety of platforms," Wright said in a statement. "In my twelve years at EA, I’ve had the pleasure to work alongside some of the brightest and most talented game developers in the industry and I look forward to working with them again in the near future.”

Wright began talking about leaving EA for Stupid Fun Club -- located in Berkeley, California -- last year, and will lead a team of nine employees. Sim City -- and all of its expansion games -- has sold more than 100 million copies since the game's original launch in 1989.

Considering Wright's involvement has led to some of EA's biggest game titles, it should be interesting to see if this hurts the company's future projects. The company is currently reorganizing after announcing it will lay off around 1,100 employees and will publish a smaller number of video games.

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quote: Ultima Online wasn't that similar! I was thinking it was more of a copy/paste from Everquest.

You're not giving credit where credit is due. Compared to WoW, Everquest is an unbalanced, buggy, and completely unpolished turd.

I mean, your argument is like someone saying that since Tolkien laid the groundwork by inventing Orc's, Elves and Hobbits, that everything after that was a simple 'copy and paste' of his works. Give me a break, that's just absurd.

Sure, similar games with a similar theme to WoW came before it. But honestly, so what ? Like 10 million people play it !!! You think there might be a pretty damn good reason for that ?

What? Play both and get back to me. The reason so many EQ players were able to jump into WoW with NO learning curve was due to the fact that the majority of both games were identical in implementation. Of course WoW is more polished, of course more people play it, that had absolutely nothing to do with any of my comments at all.

Without EQ there would never have been the WoW there is today, without Ultima Online, EQ would have been the same.

I made this statement due to a post saying that WoW was "creative". It is not, other than the storyline. Successful? Yes. Fun? Yes. Original? No.

quote: Without EQ there would never have been the WoW there is today, without Ultima Online, EQ would have been the same.

Paradox circular bullshit logic. Please don't insult my intelligence by pretending you have foreseen all possible tangents in the gaming timeline. Your statement cannot be proven or disprooven, it's just a 'logical' assumption with vapor to back it. Therefore I'm well within my rights to argue you on it.

World of Warcraft was based off, DUH, the WARCRAFT games. Not Everquest.

Normally I agree with a lot of what you say on this site Reclaimer77, but I'm afraid you're speaking out of ignorance right now...

I grew up through the era of MMOs going from backwater pastimes - from playing Ultima Online for two years, to moving to EverQuest on March 16, 1999 and being completely blown away, having more fun killing bats, rats, and snakes than I had ever had in Ultima Online. For five years I played and loved EverQuest (although admittedly, it was probably more for the community than the game itself, as I largely felt like the "fun" of exploration died out after Scars of Velious expansion). Then my guild leader Tigole told us he was going to work for Blizzard Entertainment to work on a new project. It wasn't long afterwards that nearly everyone in Legacy of Steel was invited to test what would become World of Warcraft, and suffice to say, we were absolutely floored. It was EverQuest but with fun built-in from the ground up, and all the way to level 50 (the decision to go to level 60 with the base game had not yet been made, but was on its way).

Of course, Jeffery Kaplan wasn't the only popular EQ player to be hired by Blizzard to help them make a more fun MMORPG. Alex Afrasiabi, also known as Furor Planesdefiler and leader of the Fires of Heaven guild in EverQuest, was asked to come to work at Blizzard as well. Jeffery Kaplan being the Lead Game Designer and Alex Afrasiabi being the Lead Quest Designer for World of Warcraft.

A not-very-well-known fact? Rob Pardo used to lead Legacy of Steel... who's Rob Pardo, you ask? Well, he's the Vice President of Game Design at Blizzard.

So quite simply... had it not been for Meridian 59, there probably wouldn't have been an Ultima Online... had it not been for Ultima Online's success, funding from Sony for Verant to finish up development of EverQuest probably wouldn't have materialized, and had it not been for EverQuest's popularity, World of Warcraft likely would not exist. So in a very roundabout way... had it not been for the first generation MMOs, we likely wouldn't have the ones we do now... including World of Warcraft.

Keep in mind there's not much similarity between Warcraft, 2, and 3 and World of Warcraft, other than their shared universe.

quote: Keep in mind there's not much similarity between Warcraft, 2, and 3 and World of Warcraft, other than their shared universe.

You've lost me on your last paragraph. Mind explaining why you think they're not similar? Granted of course you do take into account the difference in years for areas such as sound, graphics and to some extent gameplay. I could have sworn 1,2,3 were RTS games. You? And I take it what you mean by "Shared universe" is the storyline?

Please explain because I'm a fan of the Warcraft series and find your comments very baffling.

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